Fruit roll ups were one of my favourite snacks when I was a kid. The best was the one that had 2 flavours and you could pull apart. Also the one with tongue tattoos were so fun and made me feel cool. Childhood was a good time haha.

Now that I’m older though, I definitely try to stay away from unhealthy/sugar processed snacks. For the first recipe of strawberry week, I tried to create my own fruit roll ups. I know they probably won’t have the same flavour, but they may still have some nostalgia factor.

I didn’t realise how simple these are to make until I looked for a recipe. It was 3 ingredients and you can pretty much forget about it once it’s in the oven. I used this recipe (link here) but adjusted the amounts a bit. I used just over 2 cups of strawberries (300g), 2 tbsp lemon juice and 1.5 tbsp maple syrup – recipe called for 2-3 tbsp sweetener but I put less because my berries were pretty sweet. I tasted my mixture to ensure I liked the flavour before moving on too. Side note: because I chose maple syrup, these fruit roll ups are actually vegan.

Once I had my strawberry mixture, I spread it out thinly on a baking tray lined with a silicone baking sheet. I tried to make a big rectangle because that would help with cutting after and it doesn’t spread when cooking. I popped it in my 170° oven (lowest my oven goes) and checked it every hour or so. It ended up taking about 4.5 hours until it was fully firm and not tacky at all. It was nicely dried out and you could see all the little seeds. I guess I could’ve strained out all the seeds to make a smoother texture but I don’t mind them.

The whole time it was cooking, the house smelled so good. This process reminded me of the banana chips I made 2 weeks ago (link here) – I guess I’m just in a dehydrating groove. I was pretty hopeful about that these roll ups would turn out well.

I took the pan out of the oven and let it cool a bit before trying to peel the whole thing off my silicone sheet. As I started doing that though, the edges began to crack off which made me a little sad. I guess I didn’t spread the liquid mixture even enough so the edges were firm long before the middle. The crispy bits tasted delicious though, they were almost like strawberry chips. I decided to cut all the edges until I had a nice flexible rectangle. Then I cut that into strips (using scissors) and rolled them up. I got about 10 little rolls, but I had all those crisps too, which were like a little bonus snack.

Even though some parts got a little over dried, I’m pretty happy with how these turned out. The actual rolls were really good and chewy, and super sweet even with such a small amount of added sugar. These were an awesome snack. I will definitely make more next time.